2025 MINNESOTA INVITE
- December 4-6, 2025
- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center
- SCY (25 yards)
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
- Live Stream
The psych sheets for the last major midseason invitational of the NCAA have been released, with entries for the Minnesota Invite live as the competition is set to get underway on Thursday from the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center.
The Minnesota Invite has featured loaded fields in previous years, with the Texas Longhorns often heading to Minneapolis for their midseason showcase, but this year’s edition will be headlined solely by the Cal Golden Bears (#4 women, #5 men), who will be the lone team ranked in SwimSwam’s Top 25 in October racing outside of the Minnesota men (#23).
Teams Competing
- Minnesota (Host)
- Cal
- Harvard
- Rutgers
- UNLV
- Denver
- Northwestern (diving)
- Iowa State (diving)
Order of Events
- Swimming Prelims begin at 10:00am
- Diving Prelims begin at 12:00pm
- Swimming & Diving Finals begin at 5:00pm
MEET SCHEDULE
Thursday 12/4
- 200 Freestyle Relay
- 500 Freestyle
- 200 IM
- 50 Freestyle
- 400 Medley Relay
- 1-Meter Diving
Friday 12/5
- 200 Medley Relay
- 100 Butterfly
- 400 IM
- 200 Freestyle
- 100 Breaststroke
- 100 Backstroke
- 800 Freestyle Relay
- 3-Meter Diving
Saturday 12/6
- 1650 Freestyle
- 200 Backstroke
- 100 Freestyle
- 200 Breaststroke
- 200 Butterfly
- 400 Free Relay
- Platform Diving
All eyes will be on the burgeoning Cal women’s group that’s headlined by freshmen Claire Weinstein and Teagan O’Dell, along with French sophomore Mary-Ambre Moluh.
The Bears have over-entered, with some of their top names listed in five or six events.
Weinstein has entered five events at the meet, owning the top seed in the women’s 200, 500 and 1650 free, along with the #2 seed behind O’Dell in the 400 IM and the #3 seed in the 100 free behind teammates Mia West and Moluh.
O’Dell has six entries on her plate, owning top seeds in the 200 IM and 200 back to go along with the 400 IM, while also entering the 100 back, 200 breast and 200 fly.
Moluh is the top seed in the 50 free and 100 back, and she’s also entered in the 100 free, 200 free and 200 back.
As for West, the Canadian sophomore who has been on fire so far this season, she has six entries, seeded 2nd in the 200 free, 100 fly and 200 IM, 7th in the 50 free and entered with NT in the 200 fly to go along with her top seed in the 100 free.
Domestic freshman Annie Jia (100 fly), Norwegian freshman Silje Slyngstadli (100/200 breast) and French grad senior Lilou Ressencourt (200 fly) also own top seeds for the Golden Bears.
The Cal women own the top seed in every event, while on the men’s side, the Bears are seeded 1st in all but three events. Minnesota’s Jacob Johnson leads the 200 fly, his teammate Davide Harabagiu leads the 100 back, and UNLV’s Bryson Huey holds the top time in the 50 free.
For Cal, sophomore Yamato Okadome will be the man to beat in the breaststroke events, owning the top seed with a bullet in the 100 breast (50.89) and 200 breast (1:51.66) while also entering the 50 free, 100 free and 200 IM.
Two key freshmen to watch will be Ryan Erisman and Casper Puggaard, with Erisman having had a strong start to his college career and Puggaard having a ton of potential that he’s yet to show in yards given his international resume.
Erisman is the top seed in the 200 free, 500 free, 1650 free and 400 IM, and he’s also entered in the 100 free and 200 fly.
Puggaard, a Dane, is the #2 seed behind Johnson in the 200 fly, holds the #3 seed in the 100 fly, and he’s also entered in the 50 free, 100 back, 200 back and 200 IM.
Other top seeds for the Cal men include sophomore Nans Mazellier (100 free) and juniors Humberto Najera (200 IM), Samuel Quarles (100 fly), and Keaton Jones (200 back).
Love the “old” NCAA event order here, feels good to see again.
2022 – Texas/Cal/Wisconsin/Minnesota/Arizona/Harvard/Pitt/UNLV
This meet is always boring because Cal doesn’t taper for anything except for NCAAs and the Olympics.
It isn’t always boring. https://swimswam.com/abbey-weitzeil-becomes-first-woman-under-21-seconds-in-50-yard-freestyle/
Never got why they do this one so late and basically during exams
It’s interesting because long ago, invites used to be spread out across the months of November and December, versus now where almost all of them are concentrated on one weekend (which is a nightmare for us, but makes some sense for ‘the industry’).
Cal started going to this when it was the NCAA host, and they just kinda never stopped. Cal used to have a different timeline with Pac-12s being the last big college conference meet, so I don’t know if that played into it.
FWIW, finals at Cal are December 15th-19th. Minnesota is 12-15. Rutgers is 15-22. Harvard is 10-19, so that one’s a bit more surprising to me, given the academic focus there generally. So, many offer a… Read more »
Clarification, Cals original presence at this meet was fall 2019, the year NCAA’s was cancelled (which would have been at IUPUI). Minnesota did end up hosting NCAAs in 2023. Cal was mutually enticed by Texas also competing at the inaugural 2019 Minnesota invite. AKA the Alvin Jiang breakout meet.
One timing concern that I was wondering about is Thanksgiving break. I would imagine swimmers go home for the holiday? It doesn’t seem strategic to have your big midseason be right after a break in training?
Unless they do not take much of a break for it.
I don’t know that swimmers leave for very long for Thanksgiving at big programs, unless they’re local…
Even in my own experience at the D2 level most only travelled home for a very short period of time and we were given our taper workouts to do while back home. Our midseason meet always landed in that first week of December and I don’t think I can recall anyone having any major issues with their meet preparation because of the break. Though I do wonder if the worry that something like extra fatigue from travel or unpredictable pool access could impact a swimmer is enough to pressure coaches into just avoiding the issue and scheduling before Thanksgiving.
I was at a power 5 program and we had practice Wednesday morning and then had to be back by Monday morning. It was only 2 practices we had to do on our own, and your resting anyway, so if you miss one, it’s not a huge deal.
U of MN’s academic schedule goes later into December than most universities. Seems like the only plausible reason for this.
thanksgiving is messing with the swim meets, I’d say cancel Thanksgiving.
I can never the turkey right
Smart. Honestly we’ve been looking at the whole thing wrong.
Back in the early 90s when Texas Invite was the original and only mid season invite, it fell on this weekend. We all stayed in town for Thanksgiving and ate together. Fast forward to now and there are too many mid season invites to keep track of.
Can Weinstein race every event she’s in, or is she limited to 3?
Most mid-season meets allow for additional swims, but she’s not swimming for Sandpipers right now, so no reason to do 4IM & 200 FR back to back. If they really want to see an IM out of her, easier to just do that individually and then lead off an 800 FR relay
No Roman Jones or Matthew Chai on the men’s side. Bummer, was hoping those two would make leaps into NCAA qualifying territory this year.
Is Roman Jones still injured?
Guessing they both are given they are listed on the roster.
Hoping they heal up soon – ton of untapped potential for both.
that’s so wild. I feel like Jones has been injured for a while. I swear he had a boot on him last year too?
I get the feeling Chai’s got something else going on, unfortunately. Dude is legit, like you said
Jones was in a foot cast in their media day posts.
I am no rocket scientist but Chai would be better off at another school.
Maybe for swimming but i get the feeling he cashed in his jr results for an academic school that is really tough to get into
Why? The issue is he’s hardly been in the pool. He took an entire year+ off.
I don’t view his relative lack of lack of NCAA success to date as a knock on the coaching at Cal. He may just have other priorities that he’s focusing on.
relative lack? How many NCAAs has he been to? I think he could have done way better, based on his pre-Cal results. And he still should.
I was referencing his NCAA/college career. Not the NCAA championship meet. We agree that he’s capable of better results than he’s shown, including scoring at NCAAs.
It’s your prerogative to assume he would do better elsewhere. Maybe he would have, but I disagree that it’s Cal holding him back. I think he would do great at Cal if he was simply healthy/focused/in the pool the last three years.
example 1: he qualified in 2025 and was left out of the roster.
Cal didn’t leave him off the roster in 2025 – he wasn’t selected to the meet. He missed the cutoff.